An estimate from your run test
VO2 Max Calculator
A run test gives a rough VO2 max (your body's top rate of oxygen use). Choose a twelve-minute distance or a 1.5-mile finish time.
Your run test
What does my VO2 max estimate mean?
VO2 max describes your body's top rate of oxygen use, in millilitres per kilogram of body weight each minute. This estimate comes from your run time or distance, without measuring your breath. The test and the conditions affect the answer, so a watch or a lab can give you a different value.
Covering 2.6 km in twelve minutes gives about 47 ml/kg/min with Cooper's formula. A 12-minute finish over 1.5 miles gives about 44 with the timed formula. Those are two separate test examples, so the gap between them doesn't describe a range for one result.
The VO2 max explainer goes through the distance example and what it leaves out.
What each test uses
| Test and input | Formula | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Cooper: distance in 12 minutes | 22.351 × distance in km − 11.288 | A flat, measured course; numerical error not reported for the original formula. |
| 1.5 miles: elapsed finish time | 483 / time in minutes + 3.5 | The full 2.414016 km; the Institute's source reports no numerical error range. |
The formulas use the test result alone, without your age, sex or run history, so this page gives no percentile or health rank. Switching tests also changes the method; a different answer doesn't by itself mean your fitness has changed.
The formulas and their sources
The distance formula appears in Amit Bandyopadhyay's 2015 study, with a copy of the original paper. For the timed formula, the source is the Cooper Institute's test guide, which credits Kenneth Cooper with creating the test.
Cooper: VO2 max = 22.351 × distanceKm − 11.288
1.5-mile: VO2 max = 483 / timeMinutes + 3.5
1 mile = 1.609344 km
1.5 miles = 2.414016 kmThe calculator uses the printed numbers, converting miles to kilometres before doing the maths and rounding only for display. If the formula gives zero, a negative value or an infinite one, the calculator shows an input error. Valid results stay as calculated, without a cap or a fitness band.
Cooper's original 1968 study compared a run test with a treadmill test in 115 men from the United States Air Force. The correlation was 0.897, meaning the group's results moved closely together. That tells us about the link between tests, not an error of 10.3 percent.
A 2022 field-test study notes that Cooper didn't report an error figure for the old equation. The Institute's timed-test guide doesn't give one either, so there's no measured plus-or-minus range to put beside your result.
In Bandyopadhyay's study of 58 sedentary Indian men, the old formula averaged about 3 ml/kg/min too high. The paper proposed a new formula for that group, so its error figures don't tell us the range for your result here.
Privacy
The maths happens in your browser, and changing the test or inputs makes no network requests. Your entries aren't stored or sent anywhere, so opening the page again brings back the examples.
If you're more interested in health over the long run, Kinoku has free Longevity Mode, which changes the app's words and goals to fit that focus. This calculator still uses the same two run-test formulas, whichever way you prefer to look at your training.
Common questions
Does this calculator need my age or sex?
Both formulas use only your test result, so there's no age or sex field to fill in. The answer is an oxygen-use estimate, without an age band, percentile or fitness age to compare you with other people.
Can I enter the distance from any twelve-minute run?
Cooper's test uses the most distance you can cover in twelve minutes on a flat, measured course. You can enter an easy run or a hilly one, but the answer won't mean the same thing as a test result.
Are six laps on a 400-metre track exactly 1.5 miles?
Six laps cover 2.4 km, so you'd still have a little over fourteen metres left to reach 1.5 miles. The timed test uses the full 2.414016 km; stopping at six laps gives it a shorter run than the formula expects.
Why does the result have no plus-or-minus range?
The sources don't report an error range for either formula used here. Later studies may use different formulas or groups of people, so borrowing their error figures would give this answer more certainty than the evidence allows.
Will Kinoku show the same estimate as this page?
Kinoku's Pro Run Analytics uses heart-rate data when it can, falling back to a pace-based estimate. Those are different methods from the tests on this page, so you may see a different value in the app.